The races for governor this November in Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Virginia haven’t attracted nearly as much attention as next spring’s presidential primaries, but they are hugely important to hundreds of thousands of voters without access to health care.Leaders in the four states have rejected or put tough restrictions on extremely generous federal matching funds allocated under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to extend their Medicaid programs to cover families earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Next week, depending on who becomes governor in these states, that could change or solidify.The stakes are very real. A recent study from four researchers – University of Michigan economist Sarah Miller; University of California, Los Angeles public health scholar Laura Wherry; National Institutes of Health’s Sean Altekruse; and Norman Johnson with the US Census Bureau – estimates that failure to expand Medicaid leads to about 15,600 extra deaths per year just among people ages 55-64.

More about Study by Miller et al. finds lack of expansion in Medicaid has led to >15,600 extra deaths/year. Governor elections next week in KY, MS, LA, & VA could effect this. >